Lean In, Lean Out

Some people are getting all bent out of shape about Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In.
Some have taken it as a slap in the face to stay-at-home Moms.
Are you Team Home or Team Workplace?
If you aren’t doing it all, you aren’t working hard enough.
It’s a regular hornet’s nest.

The book isn’t really about work life balance. But frankly, it doesn’t really matter what the book is about. It’s like bumping a spot that is already bruised.

It’s a sign of pain in our society.

Women are feeling pain about trying to please society.

Some women are trying to follow society’s rule that a good woman puts her family first.  Some women are trying to follow society’s rule that to be successful you need to climb the corporate ladder and make as much money as a man.

Sounds like a lose-lose situation to me.

Did you get that?
A woman in American society can’t make everyone happy.

We hear it, we say it, but we don’t internalize it.  We still try to make everyone happy.

Solution?

There is only one.
Do what is right for you.  Listen to your gut.
Then let what everyone else says go right by you.

I think life is like a swing.  Sometimes you lean in and sometimes you lean out.  It takes both to make the swing soar high.  Corporate ladder or home, they are not at odds, they are a partnership.

It takes some work to get rid of those old rules in your head.  But it is so worth it.

Swing those legs, girl.
Rewrite the rules.
Make the view yours.